CHICAGO, IL.- Today the Art Institute of Chicago launches its partnership with the art video site ArtBabble.org. ArtBabble, an online "channel" for showcasing art-based video content, was created by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and launched in April 2009 with participation from a number of different institutions and organizations, including Art21, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. ArtBabble allows visitors to explore works of art online as never before, through a collection of interviews with artists and curators, original documentaries, and art installation videos. Incorporating cutting-edge technology, ArtBabble features high-definition video, full text transcription of all the videos on site, and interactive features including viewer feedback and video sharing. Visitors will now be able to access video content from the Art Institute of Chicago via ArtBabble.

"We are thrilled to be joining ArtBabble," said Sam Quigley, Vice President of Collections Management, Imaging and Information Technology at the Art Institute of Chicago. "ArtBabble is really a great leap forward both for museums and for web users looking for information related specifically to the visual arts. It offers content of extremely high quality, technological innovation, and the opportunity for us to dynamically and directly engage those who share our interests. It also allows us to think about new ways of documenting our collection and showing our visitors the work we do here."

The Art Institute will present a dozen videos for the launch of the partnership on July 28, 2009. These videos include behind-the-scenes installation footage of such landmark works in the museum's new Modern Wing as Ellsworth Kelly's White Curve, Charles Ray's Hinoki, a wall drawing by Sol LeWitt, and Henri Matisse's Bathers by a River . The first round of videos by the museum also includes featured lectures and readings by visiting artists, scholars, and poets connected to the museum's year-long exploration of globalism last year as well as an introduction to the Modern Wing by Art Institute director James Cuno.

The partnership with ArtBabble joins other initiatives designed to bring the collection and the efforts of the museum to the widest possible public, both online and in the galleries. The Art Institute now offers more of its collections online than ever before, the audio magazine "Musecast," and podcasts of lectures and readings available on the Art Institute's website as well as through iTunes. Last week, the Art Institute announced Pathfinder, the first online interactive floor plan and virtual gallery tour of any museum in the world.